Romney goes on attack with new TV ad, “Doing Fine”

posted at 9:21 am on June 14, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

The Romney campaign goes negative for the first time, as Jim Geraghty points out, in the general-election cycle — at least on television. Team Romney has been hitting Barack Obama for his remark that “the private sector is doing fine” almost from the moment he said it last week. Mitt Romney himself slammed Obama’s remarks at an appearance in swing-state Iowa, and the campaign has posted more than one web video featuring the remarks. Now they’re putting their money where Obama’s mouth is:

CNN reports that this will have $3.24 million behind it and will air in seven swing states:

Political analysts predicted – rightly – that Obama’s words would soon end up in a political advertisement. The Republican National Committee and later the Romney campaign both put out web videos highlighting the words.

As CNN reported Thursday, Team Romney has bought its largest ad buy of the general election media campaign and this ad will be the featured presentation. It has purchased $3.24 million in seven battleground states for time running through next Tuesday.

It’s a straightforward spot, with no embellishments other than data that comes straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and from media analysis of the economy. Here’s the script released from Team Romney, complete with links to the data:

VIDEO TEXT: “June 8, 2012”

VIDEO TEXT: “23.2 Million Americans Are In Need Of Work”

· 23.2 Million Americans Are Unemployed, Underemployed, Or Have Stopped Looking For Work. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, 6/4/12)

VIDEO TEXT: “40 Straight Months Over 8% Unemployment”

· Under President Obama, Unemployment Has Remained Above 8% For 40 Straight Months. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, 6/4/12)

VIDEO TEXT: “Middle-Class Struggles Deepen Under Obama”

· Since President Obama Took Office, Median Household Income Has Declined By $4,300. “Yet real median household income in March was down $4,300 since Obama took office in January 2009 and down $2,900 since the June 2009 start of the economic recovery, according to an analysis of census data by Sentier Research, an economic- consulting firm in Annapolis, Maryland.” (Mike Dorning, “Obama Fails To Stem Middle-Class Slide He Blamed On Bush,” Bloomberg, 4/30/12)

· Median Family Net Worth Has Hit A Two-Decade Low. “The Great Recession shrank Americans’ wealth so much that in 2010 median family net worth was no more than it had been in 1992 after adjusting for inflation, the Federal Reserve reported Monday. Median net worth declined from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010, a Fed survey of family finances found. The median marks the point where half had more and half had less.” (Martin Crutsinger, “Fed Report: Middle Class Net Worth Tumbles,” The Associated Press, 6/12/12)

VIDEO TEXT: “Millions Of Homeowners Underwater On Mortgages”

· Millions Of Homeowners Are Underwater On Their Mortgages. “Despite rising home prices, more than 30% of borrowers, or close to 16 million homeowners, were underwater on their mortgage during the first quarter, according to Zillow. The percentage of borrowers who owed more on their home than it was worth increased to 31.4% during the quarter, up slightly from 31.1% three months earlier, according to Zillow.” (Les Christie, “More Than 30% Of Mortgage Borrowers Still Underwater,” CNN Money, 5/24/12)

It’s an effective attack, and if more bad economic data comes out, Team Romney will undoubtedly refresh the ad to include it and re-release it as often as possible. They want to define Obama as clueless on how to restart job creation and the kind of growth that should have taken place over the last three years, and they’ll use every syllable of help Obama presents to them as a gift.

Update: Just to clarify a point for commenters objecting to the “negative” appellation, that’s the term used for any ad which focuses on the record of an opponent rather than solely on the candidate publishing the ad. That doesn’t make negative ads any less legitimate (a point I’ve made a number of times before), as long as they’re presented fairly.

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I don’t want to hear anymore of “in over his head”. This President is not stumbling around being stupid, everything is on the teleprompter and scripted except when he decides to wing it and get himself in trouble.

Nothing says trouble better than his actions and their consequences. This ad addresses that beautifully. People actually have to live in this “hell” that Obama has created. They aren’t used to it as Americans. Poor Obama should have thought of that. There aren’t very many of us that want to be poor.

These advertisers are horrible. Fire them NOW Mitt!
Read it to them like Dear Reader does so they don’t have to work at it.
Americans are fat, lazy and incurious, the ones Mitt needs anyway so Sound is needed NOT Reading!

Sound bites with background music except when Dopey talks!
You are wasting resources and preaching to the choir with this pap!

Umm—this is NOT a negative ad…unless you consider the truth a negative.

dirtseller on June 14, 2012 at 9:36 AM

I agree. I was just sitting here wondering how to address the declaration that this was indicative of Romney “going negative”…perhaps that assertion is more an indication of how irregular (out of touch with reality) the Left is, while has nothing to do with this Romney ad, per se.

Not only is middle-class income down, remember that prices – thanks to Obama’s war on energy – are up. The actual cost of food is up, and if you pay attention to packaging sizes, many have been hit with the “shrink-ray” where the size looks the same but they contain less food. (Like how a can of tuna is 5oz now instead of 6, coffee is often sold in 12oz bags instead of 1lb, etc.) Thanks, Obama!

The Republicans are doing a great job defining Obama IMO, and Obama is doing everything to play right into their hand. This quote was a godsend, they’ll get as much mileage out of it as they did Kerry’s “I was for the war before i was against it”.

This quote, along with Obama’s silly celebrity dinners and intolerable pandering to the elites, has helped frame him quite nicely. No wonder the Democrat leadership is looking to jump ship so early.

I mentioned yesterday that I prefer ads with data and statistics being in voice and text, so I can hear them from my kitchen.

Flora Duh on June 14, 2012 at 9:44 AM

It’s possible that there are– or there ought to be– v.o. narration versions of these ads: the “silent” version for readers seated at their computers (who aren’t likely to be wandering around the house while online); and the “voice over” version for television, when we do attend to other tasks while viewing, or use as a radio and empty-house companion.

The current ad production fashion is to do it all with images (or if you must use voice over, only the cast of Mad Men and Jeff Bridges will do). If you check movie trailers and other ads, ad creators currently prefer a “cleaner” or more visually-oriented style, with emphasis on images and graphics, including typography. Booming male voice-overs (or the alternative, calm, cool, and firmly in control Siri-style female voice) seem to be reserved for cable tv these days. I agree that that audible narrative of salient facts and figures in political ads would be helpful to a lot of people.

Good ad. The “The private sector is doing fine” line is in context, it attacks Obama where he is weakest, and the use of it can be defended. When the Democrats and press protest, it brings more attention to it. This ad and the multiple possible variations on it should be run again and again.

Good ad. The “The private sector is doing fine” line is in context, it attacks Obama where he is weakest, and the use of it can be defended. When the Democrats and press protest, it brings more attention to it. This ad and the multiple possible variations on it should be run again and again.

Aardvark on June 14, 2012 at 10:13 AM

How could this ad be made more effective? Well, if they flashed from Obama saying “The private sector is doing fine” to him sitting next to Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker, the back to him saying “The private sector is doing fine”…

Okay, what in the world is going on? I just tried posting the links again and it hasn’t posted. They were to CNBC and AP, how in the world does that get flagged?

MobileVideoEngineer on June 14, 2012 at 9:41 AM

They screen with too many and too fast sometimes.

hawkdriver on June 14, 2012 at 9:45 AM

@ MobileVideoEngineer — also, certain words used will cause a comment to disappear (won’t pass the Word Filter). Can be harmless words, specifically — but the Filter doesn’t recognize context — so perhaps you used such.

“Going negative” is just a silly arrow in the left’s quiver (shared with their symbiotic media Komrades)

It is but one of the many words/phrases that the leftist wordsmiths either create (homophobic) or misuse (“Choice”) that are just sophisticated name calling–like intolerant, insensitive, racist, partisan, extreme, mean-spirited, gun-clingers etc.

I’d love to have Mitt put an add out warning everyone to watch for them -over and over -with a picture of Gobbles in the background.

Everyone loves to praise Obama as the greatest politician to ever draw breath, but Barack pretty much handed the GOP the election with this.

The worse part is, this wasn’t a slip of the tongue or something taken out of context. Obama truly believes our only economic problem is that we need more government workers, that everyone else is doing fine. It’s actually pretty terrifying we have a President so out of touch.